How do i boot into runlevel 3 in ubuntu, i want to install the nvidia drivers for my 7600gs but i have to stop x or boot into runlevel 3, neither of which i know how to do? Any ideas or is there a better way to get my card running properly?

Cheers

You can stop X by simply hitting Ctrl + alt + backspace.

Logout from your GUI. Press <ctrl><alt><F1> which will take you to a console where you can login. Try sudo gdm-stop to stop the x-server. <ctrl><alt><F7> will take you back to GUI (in case that is necessary and x-server is running).

Thanks for the reply, i logged out of x with ctrl alt f1 but when i did sudo gdm-stop i was met with unknown command. I tried running my nvidia installer and it said x was still running.

Try
too, if it worked. Though I had the impression /sbin was already in the first-created user's path in Ubuntu. There are other ways too; you can always use
to jump to runlevel 3, if you know it's non-graphical. Back to 5, for example, with
simple as that as long as there are non-graphical consoles available (I've seen cases where all 3-5 have X set to be autostarted). If you can't find gdm-stop then you can try to type gdm in the terminal and press TAB twice, if using BASH (which Ubuntu uses by default) to see what's available. If you see something that is likely to shut GDM down, try it. You can also use kill or killall to kill GDM process(es) but that's unlikely to work easily, if I'm right GDM will simply resurrect right after it dies.

EDIT: also see if there is some gdm-stopping script in /etc/init.d -- I have a faint memory there should be one..

Code:

/etc/init.d/gdm stop

for example, though I'm not sure at all if it is there or not. If it works, you can then restart it the same way, except replace 'stop' with 'start'.

OK, I've tried all that and it seems my system is one of the ones where x is started in all runlevels above 1, the problem now is that in runlevel 1 the nvidia installer tels me that i shouldn't install the drivers because devfs is usually not running in runlevel 1. It doesn't say that its definitely not running and there doesn't seem to be a kill script in rc.1. If i rename S13gdm to K13gdm in rc.2 will that finish off X? there is also another x related script in there called S10xserver-xorg-input-wacom, do you think tat wants changing too?
By the way /etc/init.d/gdm stop stops gdm, or at least it tells me it has but the nvidia drivers say x is still running. I'm thinking of just running the nvidia install anyway in 1 because theres no kill script in there for devfs, do you think that could the do terrible things or is it likely to just stop and crash?

EDIT, I installed the drivers earlier in runlevel 1 and they worked fine.

Thanks